Michael Pineda had a 1.89 ERA and 0.83 WHIP last year pitching some amazing ball for the Yankees. It was a mirage. I'm not talking the kind of slight of hand that makes you think a "6.5" is an "8" at a bar (thank you Fireball). I'm talking the kind of trick that makes you think that a "4" is a "9" (thank you seven shots of Fireball). Though I know the pull is strong, don't be seduced by the power of the darkside with Pineda. Read on to find out why Pineda will not end up on one of my fantasy squads in 2015.
HEALTH WOES
Shockingly, Pineda has made only 41 starts at the big league level. That's it. Oh, and it's taken him four years to get there. Four. After making 28 impressive starts for the Mariners in 2011 - including a 9.11 K/9 mark and 1.10 WHIP - Pineda's spent more time on the sidelines than on the field. Why? Shoulder woes are the main culprit here. He had surgery on a torn labrum on his shoulder in 2012 and it's been a battle to get out on the bump ever since.
Let me be clear. Shoulder woes usually don't go away. A guy can have Tommy John surgery to fix his elbow and pretty much go right on going on once fully healed. It's rare that a guy has shoulder surgery and then returns to his previous self. I'll get to that below in more detail. For now, suffice to say that Pineda needs to be viewed through the prism of injury. Pitching is inherently dangerous - there may not be a more difficult motion in all of sports on the body than throwing a baseball - so it makes a lot of sense to avoid danger whenever possible with a hurler. In the case of Pineda we have a fella who has thrown 76.1 big league innings in three years. Read that again. And again. This fact alone should cause you trepidation before calling out Pineda's name on draft day. Even if we add in his minor league work, here are the inning pitched totals for the 25 year old.
2006: 20.1 innings
2007: 59 innings
2008: 138.1 innings
2009: 47.1 innings
2010: 139.1 innings
2011: 171 innings
2012: zero innings
2013: 40.2 innings
2014: 84 innings
The guy has been a professional pitcher for nine years. He has one season of 140-innings pitched.
Reconsidering your thoughts on his 2015 outlook yet? Don't worry. I've got plenty of more data to persuade you.
THE SKILLS
Over the course of 452.2 minor league innings the massive man that is Pineda, he is 6'7" and 270 lbs, struck out 448 batters. Let's call it one an inning, shall we? As a rookie in 2011 he struck out 173 men in 171 innings. Let's call that one an inning, shall we? So for the first eight years of his professional career he struck out a batter per inning. Last season, you know what that number was? Try 6.96 per nine on for size. Data points. (1) The big league average last season for K/9 was 7.67. (2) Pineda lost more than two batters off his strikeout per nine inning mark. That's a decrease of about 23 percent from his previously established level. That's like a pitcher going from 18 wins to 14 or a batter going from 25 homers to 19. It's a huge difference any way you cut it.
Was it a one year "slump"? Let's investigate.
We're only talking about 76.1 innings in 2014, 13 starts, and that's not a huge sample size. I will grant you that. This is what else I see.
Pineda's average fastball in 2011 was 94.7 mph. In 2014 that number dropped more than two miles per hour down to 92.5. That's a significant drop. It may not sound like much, but it is. Will the velocity return given all his shoulder woes? The odds of that occurring are on the low end. Less velocity likely means a return to his strikeout-per-inning ways isn't happening.
However, maybe we split the pie here? By that I mean, maybe Michael gains back half of what he lost in 2014 in the strikeout department. I say that because, despite the velocity drop, there's a lot of similar things still going on here. Consider the following.
2011: 50.2 percent of his pitches were swung at.
2014: 51.1 percent of his pitches were swing at.
2011: 84.0 percent of swings at pitches in strike zone with contact.
2014: 85.1 percent of swings at pitches in strike zone with contact.
2011: 75.8 percent of contact on all swings
2014: 77.5 percent of contact on all swings
2011: 11.8 swinging strike percentage
2014: 11.2 swinging strike percentage
All of those numbers are virtually identical, despite the lowered velocity in '14. That speaks to a positive outlook for a rebound in the strikeout column, though again, expecting a leap back to one per inning rate isn't wise.
So now that we've talked strikeouts, let's talk walks. Here is a recounting of Pineda's walk per nine mark for every season of his professional career.
2006: 3.1 per nine
2007: 1.7 per nine
2008: 2.3 per nine
2009: 1.1 per nine
2010: 2.2 per nine
2011: 3.74 per nine (in the big leagues)
2012: zero innings
2013: 3.1 per nine
2014: 0.9 per nine (in the big leagues)
So Pineda has long thrown strikes and done a solid job limiting the walks. Still, this is what catches my eye. (1) For his career in the minors Pineda has walked 2.1 batters per nine innings. That's more than 100 percent higher than his mark in 2014. (2) Pineda had the worst BB/9 rate of his career in his first big league season. His mark in his second big league season was one quarter of his first season mark. Read that again. Is it logical to expect Pineda to continue along at last year's levels when he walked eight men in 84 innings? Hell no it ain't. Not only does his own history suggest that a massive increase is coming, there's also history itself. Since 2000 there have only been five seasons when a big league hurler walked less than a batter per nine innings while throwing 162 innings: David Wells (twice), Cliff Lee, Carlos Silva and Jon Lieber. The likely explosion in Pineda's walk rate in 2015 is more of a concern than the strikeouts for this analyst.
Batted ball rates matter, and if given enough of a sample size it's pretty rare that a guy is able to substantially outpace the likely outcome for an extended period of time. This is instructive with Pineda. As a rookie he posted a GB/FB ratio of 0.81 which led to a 0.95 HR/9 mark. Given the 45 percent fly ball rate he allowed he was a bit fortunate to have his HR/9 mark be under one. Perhaps pitching in Seattle helped. Moving to New York, there can be no dispute that he pitches in a more hitter friendly environment, one that substantially aids batters with the big fly. So he allowed more homers in 2014, right? Well... despite posting a virtually identical GB/FB ratio of 0.92 last year his HR/9 mark dipped to 0.59 per nine. That's not going to happen again in 2015. His 5.4 percent HR/F rate will increase and his HR/9 rate will also go up. It's a matter of whether it returns to 2011 levels or a bit higher.
Finally, let's look at a few measures that should concern you, if you're not already a bit nervous.
Pineda had an unrepeatable 1.89 ERA. We can all agree with that statement. However, how far will it rise in 2015? Let's look at his 2014 effort for some direction. According to four measures of ERA, metrics that remove some of the white noise and look more directly at what the pitcher can control, Pineda wasn't anywhere close to deserving his 2014 ERA. The totals.
SIERA: 3.38
FIP: 2.71
XFIP: 3.37
DIPS: 2.80
All of the measures suggest that Pineda's performance last year was much more that of a hurler with a 2.89 ERA instead of the 1.89 mark he posted. Recall that Pineda had a 3.74 ERA in his first big league season.
How nervous are you at this point? Slightly or are you shaking like a nine year old sneaking into the family room to watch your first horror flick after your parents went to bed?
CONCLUSION
Pineda will be overdrafted in 2015. You don't want to be part of that crowd. People will look at the logo on his cap, the ERA/WHIP he posted last season, and run to the draft table hoping beyond hope that Pineda ends up on their team. Know this.
(1) Pineda will see a significant uptick in his ERA this season.
(2) Pineda will see a significant uptick in his WHIP this season.
By significant I mean - s i g n i f i c a n t.
(3) Pineda will likely see his homer rate increase.
(4) Pineda will see his walk rate increase, potentially explode actually.
(5) Pineda has thrown one season of 140 innings in nine years, and in the eight season in which he's actually thrown a pitch his average innings pitched total has been 87.
How anyone could have any remote level of confidence in Pineda is beyond me.